The Long Way Home

HSBC Bank, Tulum:
A Mayan toddler in a diaper is looking at photos on a mobile phone, while her mother is at the teller.

Meanwhile, I’m sitting in a Palapa waiting for my Gemmola.

Here’s a static map of the distance we covered in the USA. Total miles: 3,057 (although Jackson-New Orleans was on a Greyhound bus). Clicking the map will take you to an interactive version; to see the route click ‘get directions’ on the left of the page.

Travel halted temporarily to farewell Cath Howman.

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Our last day in Cuba. Scroll down to see the start of the Cuba section, if you haven’t already! Also check out the new ‘videos’ page which will have more videos added soon.

In addition to our last meal of Che’s pizza, we visited the National Gallery of Art. Below are some examples of the beautiful and interesting work there. The last is my favourite – a highly elaborate ‘xilografia’ or wood-cut.

Click!

Che oversees the delivery of our last two Cuban pizzas.

Various Cuban artworks

View from a Coco-cab from Havana’s Malecon waterfront.

It was hot in Viñales. So hot that the middle of the day was a write-off. We got the bus early this morning to arrive back in Havana by lunchtime. Accomodation and food was cheaper (and better) than in Havana. We’re back at Casa Valdez now with Emilio and have been told that we can stay tonight but may have to move tomorrow. I explained to Emilio that we told Alexi (the lady who works here) before we left that we needed a room today and tomorrow but that there must have been some sort of miscommunication (given her level of English and my Spanish I thought that I was being diplomatic, rather than insisting we’d booked two nights), but Emilio was very honest and said that even if we’d requested the two nights from him we’d likely still have to move because a Cuban film crew was staying and they had priority.

I took a half-decent portrait of a ‘Habanero’ (Havana local – must be where habanero peppers come from) today and he insisted I give him money afterwards. Not more than five minutes later we were browsing ancient and newer books at stalls in a square, and on the front cover of a Lonely Planet Cuba book was said gentleman, our playboy. At least my photo was marginally better than the cover shot.

Photos: Casa Valdez main room. Emilio’s brother is a painter and his muse is a very large lady. Paintings of her adorn every wall in the building.

My Cuban Playmate – iPhone photo of Pentax 3″ LCD screen:

Marti’s facial expression does not describe the pizza, rather that she’s sick of her life being photographed by me 18 hours a day. Pizzas are now (relatively) tasty and even more so since our constitution knows how to handle them and our wallets welcome them. (We also got some great pineapples today at the farmer’s market. I would have taken some photos but the butcher took up all my time, trying to set me up with some ‘Jineteras’, female hustlers after a good time and one’s money.)

Looking like a painting, Viñales Valley is the kind of landscape you expect a Brontosaurus to stomp across or a Pterodactyl to swoop down into. This morning’s early light enhanced this feeling, with low bulbous clouds constantly racing overhead, creating changing patterns of light which confounded any attempts to shoot multiple frames that might be stitched into a panorama later.

The hills (mogotes) were formed when underground rivers ate away at the surrounding area, collapsing it. Caves, some navigable by boat, remain.

Valley of the dinosaurs:

Fortunately we haven’t yet encountered any of these Arachnids in a live state, although there have been many dead on the road. This is one of the smaller specimens (that’s a 5 cent piece):

It’s been around the world a few times (and that’s just since I inherited it from my grandfather), and some of my favourite and most well-known photos have been taken on it, but it seems my twin-lens reflex German-built Flexo camera has finally run out of steam. Or perhaps it’s just steam that’s the problem; I’m hoping that the now totally unreliable shutter and sticky aperture leaves are simply affected by the humidity. Shooting with it has always demanded a guessed light-reading (who travels with a meter these days?) and a bit of luck on aperture and shutter settings, but now it’s just a waste of film. It hasn’t ever been serviced (except once by me) and there are several other mechanical aspects that need repair as well. Seeing all these old cars still running in Cuba though gives me much hope, and I’m sure it will shoot again after a thorough service. I’m planning on posting it to Greece where it will await my arrival, and its subsequent delivery, to that fantastic little camera store in Athens I’ve always wanted to take it to.

It’s at least had a good run on this trip – let’s just hope the shutter problems didn’t begin too long before I detected them!